Laramie seeks volunteers for landfill waste study to boost recycling

A truckload of Laramie trash will be pulled aside at the city landfill on Roger Canyon Road this month, and volunteers will sort through what residents, businesses and campus users are throwing away to help decide what the city should fix next.

The waste characterization study is set for Tuesday, April 21 through Friday, April 24 at the Laramie Landfill/Recycling Center, 162 Roger Canyon Rd., about 1.5 miles north of the city limits. The City of Laramie said the effort is Phase 1 of its waste reduction strategy with diversion goals, a policy objective adopted by the City Council for 2025. City officials want the study to identify the sources, types and quantities of discarded materials so they can use the results to reduce landfill costs, improve recycling programs, and plan future policy and infrastructure changes.

In practical terms, the city will divert selected waste trucks away from the landfill’s main cell and bring the loads to a survey site, where staff and volunteers will sort and categorize the contents. That means the city is not just asking what is in the trash, but what common items are still ending up there instead of in the recycling center or compost facility, including cardboard, glass, metal containers, batteries, tires, green waste, refrigerators and other bulky material. The landfill’s recycling center already accepts glass, metal, tires, batteries, refrigerators and single-stream recycling, and the site also has a compost facility for green waste.

The volunteer ask is structured around hands-on work. Shifts are 4 hours or 8 hours, partial shifts cannot be accommodated, and the city said all necessary training, equipment and PPE will be provided. Volunteers are also being told to wear sturdy work boots and complete an additional quick training course before participating. As of the volunteer listing, only four spots remained. Questions go to Solid Waste Manager JR Slingerland at 307-721-5309 or oslingerland@cityoflaramie.org.

The stakes are bigger than one cleanup event. City data show the recycling and diversion system already moved more than 16.2 million pounds of material in 2025, including 2.3 million pounds of single-stream recycling, 10.3 million pounds of green waste, 244,080 pounds of tires, 38,480 pounds of e-waste, 268,200 pounds of scrap metal, 12,080 pounds of batteries, 67,980 pounds of glass and 44,440 pounds of household hazardous waste. Officials want the new study to turn those totals into a baseline, then use it to decide what materials Laramie should capture better, what services are worth expanding, and where city dollars should go next.